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The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in the first-class cabin of an Air France jet bound for Paris on Saturday. The French socialist who is nicknamed the “le grand séducteur” or Great Seducer was charged with attempted rape, unlawful imprisonment and a criminal sex act. A New York grand jury formally indicted him yesterday on seven counts related to the alleged sexual assault of a maid in a fancy $3,000-a-night Midtown Manhattan hotel over the weekend.

It is often said that Benjamin Franklin once wrote “in this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” The dreaded Tax Day has finally arrived. Due to the District of Columbia observing Emancipation Day on Friday, Tax Day official lands on April 18th this year. This means that we are all forced to surrender our hard-earned money to the federal government by the end of the day today. Anyone who owes taxes has to pay up to Uncle Sam or ultimately end up behind prison bars.

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a member of France’s Socialist Party. As one of the 187 member countries, U.S. taxpayers pay roughly 17 percent of the IMF’s total funding. Dominique Strauss-Kahn even unsuccessfully ran for president of France on the Socialist ticket in 2007.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced plans to bailout Ireland. Since U.S. taxpayers pay 17 percent of the IMF’s funding, we are the world’s largest contributors. This means that American taxpayers will be on the hook again for billions of dollars to prop up failed economic policies overseas. With the largest share of voting power, the U.S. government has the authority to veto any IMF bailout.

Washington, DC – Due to its promised share of the G-20’s $500 billion increase in the IMF’s New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB), The Obama administration is seeking $108 billion in new resources for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under such legislation, so the story goes, the IMF would then be able to expand its ability to lend to troubled economies. By granting new resources at the request of the administration, the U.S. Congress would be granting unprecedented power to the IMF. Given the current status of the global financial system, this marks a rather troubling departure from the traditional role the IMF has played since its formal inception in 1944.In addition to the $500 billion NAB supplement, the G-20 also agreed to $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to member countries as well as a new, unrestricted Flexible Credit Line (FCL) for member states that pre-qualify with “good” economic policies. Under the combination of the FCL and SDRs, the IMF creeps eerily closer to what amounts to an international central bank with unconditional lending powers, yet it is without any regulatory authority. As a result, while the IMF can lend to well-intended beneficiaries like Poland and Hungary, it is also free to dish out even more—due to its system of quotas—to malevolent states like Iran and Venezuela.FreedomWorks encourages all members of Congress to deny the passage of any bill that grants such unnecessary influence to an obsolete international institution at the expense of the American taxpayer. The IMF no longer serves the purposes it was initially intended, and in its new role, questions regarding the political and financial legitimacy of the institution should be raised. FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe attacked such a new role for the IMF: “Should such legislation pass, it would effectively remake the IMF. This is not your grandfather’s IMF. The IMF was already revamped after crisis of the ’70s, but what is now being supported by the administration is more than asinine, it borders on illegality. That an honest, taxpaying American must send his hard-earned dollars to finance a nuclear-aspiring rogue state such as Iran or big government thugs like Hugo Chavez is difficult to imagine.”

Washington, DC - Although the United States is drowning in debt, the Senate voted to included a $108 billion bailout for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the recent passage of S. 1054 - the 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act. Senators voted 64-30 to reject an amendment offered by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C) that would have prevented the waste of billions of taxpayer dollars. Those who voted against the amendment voted to irresponsibly bail out foreign banks and governments at the expense of the American taxpayer.

On behalf of hundreds of thousands of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to vote “No” on the war Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 because the bill includes a $100 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. The bill contains funding for other projects that should not be used as a vehicle to ram IMF funding through Congress. Using this method to get the IMF funding passed is dirty Washington politics and law makers should reject it.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) holds an imaginary currency called Special Drawing Rights (SDR) that acts as a currency reserve for other countries. A reserve currency is held by foreign countries to purchase or sell their national currency in order to manipulate its value. Recently, the dollar and Euro fill the role of reserve currency for 90 percent of global reserves. The SDRs currently represent the value of the Euro, pound, dollar, and yen. The basket of currencies is intended, in the rhetoric anyway, to stabilize the value of the reserve currency rather than putting control in the hands of a single government or central bank. Russia and China are now pursuing the expansion of the program to include their currency and to increase the amount of SDRs available.